8 Days Gansu and Badan Jaran Desert Adventure

Today your flight will touch down in Zhangye. we will meet you at the airport, transfer you to the hotel and check you in. Have a good rest.

Enjoy your buffet breakfast at the hotel, then we will travel to Mati Temple where were built in Jin Dynasty. A series of horse shoe prints are visible in Grotto 9, which are said to be left by a heaven horse. As a result, the temple was named for the horseshoe prints left by the legendary heaven horse, which become the treasure of the temple.

After lunch, we head fort Pingshan Lake Valley, and we will stay overnight in the Pingshanhu.

Enjoy your breakfast then to visit Pingshan Lake Valley. As we know, Zhangye is famous for various Danxia landform. So hiking around Pingshanhu Danxia is an optional. Following the travel route directly down to the bottom, you will see rocks up and down. It is real wild hiking. Till climbing a vertical irony steel to up, you will see vast red flat plain stretching boundlessly as you are on the top.

After lunch, we head for Badain Jaran Desert , Enjoy the desert Safari and will stay overnight in the Badain Jaran Desert.

With an early start of exploring Badain Jaran Desert with different scenery and activities. This desert is home to some of the tallest stationary dunes on Earth, with some reaching a height of more than 500 meters, although most average at around 200 meters. Its tallest dune is also measured, from base to peak, as the world's third tallest dune and highest stationary dune in the world. The desert also features over 100 spring-fed lakes that lie between the dunes, some of which are fresh water while others are extremely saline. These lakes give the desert its name which is Mongolian for "mysterious lakes". It is also crossed by one river, the Ruo Shui ("weak water"), which has formed an alluvial plain in the desert.

After lunch, we head for Zhangye Danxia, and will stay overnight in the Zhangye Danxia .

In the morning enjoy your breakfast,then to explore Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park for its ribbons of red, orange and yellow through the rock to create a rainbow vista contained only by the contours of the jagged mountain peaks. So many people also call it "Rainbow Mountain" for taking photos and hiking around.

Next is drive to Jiayuguan to Jiayuguan Pass. It is a great militarily self-defence complex in Chinese ancient time. Meanwhile hang around the Great Wall Museum, which was opened to the public in October 1989 as the biggest military museum of China and it is the first one to exhibit the Great Wall culture in a comprehensive and systematic way. As one of the tour destinations along the silk road, the Overhanging Great Wall is the best place where you can visit the culture of the ancient Silk Road and the Great Wall plus the ancient weapons exhibition in Jiayuguan.

In the morning you will be free to relax and after Lunch take the fast train to Dunhuang

Upon arrival, you will enjoy a walking tour to the Shazhou Night Market, the most bustling place of Dunhuang at night. It's easy to lose our sense of time wonder the market while enjoy your leisure time and taste some local cuisine.

Today we will spend a whole day to explore the geological landscape of Dunhuang, the first site we will visit is the Yangguan Pass. Here is an ancient batter field duplicated with colorful war flags and watch towers. They remind us of cruelty of wars in ancient time.

Thereafter, we will travel to the Yumen Guan Pass, It got the name because the famous Khotan jade entered the Dunhuang from here. Yumenguan pass and Yangguan pass were the two critical defensive passes protecting Dunhuang from invasion from the West about thousands of year ago. From here you can not only learn more history and culture about the ancient Silk Road, but also learn many famous poems of Tang Dynasty.

It is a climate time of visiting Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes, this UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the great artistic and religious wonders of the world and it is famous for its exquisite murals and various sculptures inside the caves, which was built in different dynasties, spanning 1,000 years of Buddhist art. 

Thereafter, we will take you to the airport and catch a flight back to your sweet home.